Flames
by Shara
Summary: As a father and son stand in front of a funeral pyre, they reflect on their lives and their relationship to one another.


Well, I tried posting this here before, but it didn't work too well. So,   
here I go, trying again. ;)  
  
Flames   
  
I close my eyes, just briefly. I want to blink the tears away, I want to   
break down and sob. I want to close my eyes and will this whole day, this   
whole reality away. To strip my life down to its most basic origins and   
find out what could have been. If only, if only...What good will 'if   
only's' do now? My life is at its unfolded, there is nothing I can do to   
change that. I have to live what the Force has dealt me, that is the way   
of life.   
  
The flames jump higher, consuming the black armour on the pyre in front of   
me...the flames. They are a fitting end for the man that had hidden behind   
that mask for such a very long time. The man who is the cause of this pain,  
and the boy who just didn't know what he was doing...   
  
**************************************************   
  
From the time I was a child I had something burning inside of me. I had   
what felt like a thousand suns in the place of where my heart should be.   
I could feel it burning sometimes, when I was angry, when I was afraid...  
sometimes I thought I would be destroyed by it, it was so strong.   
  
People have called me heartless at different points in time. I'm not. I   
could feel things more intensely than 'normal' people would ever be able   
to fathom. That was one of the reasons I became so vicious. If I turned   
back, even a little, the things I had done would envelop me and I would   
never be able to escape the hell I had created.   
  
I would have deserved it. I admit readily that I am the single most   
despised man in the galaxy. I deserve that as well. I hate myself for   
every single thing I have done in my lifetime, every moment I was alive   
when I really should just have let myself die.   
  
**************************************************   
  
I know he did a lot of terrible things. He did a lot of them to me, and to   
the people I love. He committed atrocities of such a horrendous nature   
that it would probably destroy me to know the full extent of them. And I   
know that people hate him. There was a time when I did as well. A time   
when I would rather have killed him than saved him, become like him than   
admit I was his son.   
  
But somewhere deep inside me I could feel that there was something more   
than the evil mask he showed the galaxy. That there was a part of him that   
hated itself for what the rest of him was doing. Sometimes I would swear   
that I could hear his voice in my mind, soft and pleading, nothing like the   
voice that came through the mask he wore...a voice that was begging me,   
pleading me to join him, to help him, to save him...   
  
**************************************************   
  
Luke was my salvation. He was hope when there was none, my inspiration when   
I needed a reason to carry on. I like to think that my life was in stasis,   
that the person I am didn't exist until Luke came along. Somehow, just the   
thought of him changed everything. After I found out that I had a son, it   
became harder for to continue the things I was doing. I started thinking   
of Luke, and what he would want me to do, and the compulsion for violence   
just seemed to drain away.   
  
Suddenly he became the only thing I could think of. The only terrible   
things I did were in the pursuit of him. The only times I wanted to kill a   
person was when their incompetence had failed to get me any closer to my   
elusive son. But then again, I had a different view of competence than most   
people do. For me it was either perfection or nothing at all. It wasn't a   
goal, it was an expectation. From me, from the people around me, and most   
of all for the people I loved.   
  
**************************************************   
  
When I found out that he was my father my entire life changed. Everything   
I thought I was, and everything I wanted to be was tainted by the idea that   
this was who I was. This was the person I was created by. It infuriated me.  
The idea that I might have something of him, anything of him inside of me   
was infuriating to me. He was a monster, a person that not only deserved to  
die, but had never deserved to live in the first place.   
  
With training that dissipated. Hatred led to the dark side, so I learnt to   
get rid of it, to pity the man, instead of hating him. And that worked for   
a while. Perhaps a day. It was then he decided to spring on me the fact   
that I was his son, he was my father, and there wasn't a thing in this   
galaxy or any other that would be able to make that revelation go away.   
  
Why is it that the things we want most in the universe are the ones that   
hurt us the most? There are so many things I have dreamed of in my life. I   
never realised until they were stolen out from under me that so many of   
them were related to the illusion I had built up of what my father was   
like. I have always had an active imagination, and it had conjured up   
images of this hero that sacrificed himself to save others...   
  
**************************************************   
  
It was the hardest for three people. Padme, my mother, and Obi-Wan. They   
were the people that I cared for more than any others. As I expected myself   
to be perfect, I expected them to be as well. I know that is unrealistic to   
force these hopes upon people, I did not realise at the time I was doing   
so, and in that I suppose I have an excuse. But it was these expectations of   
myself and other people that were the greatest factor in what the galaxy   
referred to as my 'fall'.   
  
For my mother, it was almost an innocent thing. She was a figure of my   
childhood. Doesn't every young boy think of their mother as perfect? To me   
the sun, the starts and the sky all revolved around her, and sparkled in   
her deep brown eyes. I followed her advice, willingly,and joined the Jedi   
Order. She never could have guessed what a big mistake that turned out to   
be.   
  
**************************************************   
  
I wonder often about my mother. Who she was, how she died...I know that   
Leia would be able to tell me a little of it, but a little isn't enough,   
not to me. A mother is an important role in a boy's, and in a man's life,   
and as much as I knew Aunt Beru loved me, she was never able to truly   
fulfil that role.   
  
There's no hope, now of finding out who she was, and what happened to her.   
At one point in time there were three people I could have asked. Or were   
there. A hunch tells me my father would not have been too receptive to me   
mentioning her. Yoda seemed to delight in hiding the truth from me, telling   
me I would 'find out later'. When is later Yoda? Now? And Ben...old Ben. A   
constant figure in my life, and yet a person that I never truly knew. I   
have no doubt that although I would have gotten the truth from Ben, it   
would be in a form so distorted that it really wouldn't have been very   
effective any way.   
  
So where does that leave me now? In a very confusing place, that's for   
sure. I don't know where to go from here, where it is I want to go.   
Everything I was, everything I am has been tied up with the rebellion,   
which I'm pretty sure, is now over. So what do I do? Where do I go? The   
choice is mine now, which it never has been before, and truth to tell, I'm   
scared to make it.   
  
**************************************************   
  
For Padme, though, I suppose it would have been easy. She was perfect   
anyway...in my eyes at least. To me, Padme was the epitome of perfection.   
There was not a thing she could do wrong. She told me once, that one of   
the reasons she became the queen of her people was to compensate for her   
being so ordinary otherwise. Ordinary? Padme could not have been ordinary   
if she tried.   
  
As for Obi-Wan...I tried so hard to be like him. It never occurred to me   
that he may have been thinking the same thing at times. For a while, when   
I turned I was convinced that he and Padme had been having an affair. All   
the clues seemed to add up. It was only until Padme's death that I   
discovered any different. Her last words were addressed to me. Even after   
all I had done to her, the times I had hurt her...her last words were to   
tell me that she loved me, and that she had forgiven me for what I had   
done. She swore to me with her dying breath that she and Obi-Wan had never   
touched...it was not until I looked into the eyes of my son that I could   
believe her.   
  
I have so many regrets, and so many things I want to make up for. I have   
committed crimes that would make even the most hardened of criminals break   
down and cry. I regret these things, and yet I cannot. As I stand here,   
behind my son, watching my body burn, all I can think is how grateful I am   
for ever being able to live, for getting the opportunity to know the   
beautiful souls of my wife, my mother, my master and my son.   
  
There are so many that have passed before me, but for now, I will keep the   
ethereal, timeless beauty of a young queen, the steady, comforting hands   
of a motherly women, the laughing eyes of a mischievous Jedi, and the   
warm heart of a young boy in my mind. It is through these images, I know,   
that I will find absolution. 


End file.
